What is "gimlet"

Gimlet \Gim"let\, n. [Also written and pronounced gimbled] [OF. guimbelet, guibelet, F. gibelet, prob. fr. OD. wimpel, weme, a bore, wemelen to bore, to wimble. See Wimble, n.] A small tool for boring holes. It has a leading screw, a grooved body, and a cross handle.

Gimlet eye, a squint-eye. [Colloq.]
--Wright.

Gimlet \Gim"let\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Gimleted; p. pr. & vb. n. Gimleting.]

1. To pierce or make with a gimlet.

2. (Naut.) To turn round (an anchor) by the stock, with a motion like turning a gimlet.

boring-tool, mid-14c., gymbelette, from Anglo-French guimbelet (French gibelet), perhaps from Middle Dutch wimmelkijn (with substitute of French diminutive suffix), diminutive of wimmel "auger, drill." The meaning "cocktail made with gin or vodka and lime juice" is first attested 1928, presumably from its "penetrating" effects on the drinker.

n. 1 A small screw-tipped tool for bore holes. 2 A cocktail, usually made with gin and lime juice. vb. To pierce or bore holes (as if using a gimlet).

1. n. a cocktail made of gin or vodka and lime juice

2. hand tool for boring holes [syn: auger, screw auger, wimble]

A gimlet is a hand tool for drilling small holes, mainly in wood, without splitting. It was defined in Joseph Gwilt's Architecture (1859) as "a piece of steel of a semi-cylindrical form, hollow on one side, having a cross handle at one end and a worm or screw at the other".

A gimlet is always a small tool. A similar tool of larger size is called an auger. The cutting action of the gimlet is slightly different from an auger, however, as the end of the screw, and so the initial hole it makes, is smaller; the cutting edges pare away the wood which is moved out by the spiral sides, falling out through the entry hole. This also pulls the gimlet farther into the hole as it is turned; unlike a bradawl, pressure is not required once the tip has been drawn in.

The name "gimlet" comes from the Old French guinbelet, guimbelet, later guibelet, probably a diminutive of the Anglo-French "wimble", a variation of "guimble", from the Middle Low German wiemel, cf. the Scandinavian wammie, to bore or twist; the modern French is gibelet.

The gimlet is a cocktail made of gin and lime juice. A 1928 description of the drink was: "gin, a spot of lime, and soda." The description in the 1953 Raymond Chandler novel The Long Goodbye stated that "a real gimlet is half gin and half Rose's lime juice and nothing else". The derivation of the naming of the gimlet cocktail has caused a little confusion. Surgeon General Sir Thomas Gimelette, (RN 1879-1913), first added lime cordial to the daily gin tot of the men of the Royal Navy under his care to help combat the ravages of scurvy on long voyages. Scurvy was a common disease of the ordinary seamen of the navy due to a lack of vitamin C while on long voyages without fresh supplies of fruit and vegetables. The gimlet was named after the Surgeon General.

A variant of the cocktail, the vodka gimlet, replaces gin with vodka.

A similar lime juice cocktail using rum instead of vodka or gin is the daiquiri.

Gimlet may refer to:

The Gimlet was an unguided air-to-air and air-to-surface rocket developed by the United States Navy during the early 1950s. Although it proved successful in testing and was ordered into large-scale production, the arrival of the guided missile as a practical and reliable weapon resulted in the cancellation of the Gimlet rocket in 1957.